Libertyville house turning not-so-big vision into reality

Houses in Libertyville's SchoolStreet Homes are close to the street with prominent front porches. Read more

It's been a dozen years since architect Sarah Susanka wrote her first book on not-so-big houses, and if she was the type, Susanka could be having an "I told you so" moment right about now.

McMansions are passe, and even the largest builders are thinking small in terms of house size and price. It's almost as if she saw the writing on the proverbial wall.

But Susanka's success in transforming her message into a commercial brand has been limited, in part because in her mind small doesn't mean cheap, and that's not a message that resonates well in a depressed housing market. A few years ago, she was interested in bringing her designs to a larger audience and toyed with the idea of partnering with a larger builder. She even conceived a few "build better, not bigger" houses to show publicly held builders.

"I had a rude awakening," Susanka said. "They don't want to be cutting edge. What they want to do is make a smaller, less-expensive product. Long term they'll see the light, but now they aren't wiling to take that risk. Risk is a dirty word.

"What I'm trying to put forward is not an easy sound bite."

Next year, however, Susanka is going to see one of her homes take shape as part of a development in Libertyville, a community she's become quite taken with in the past few months.

Since last spring, developer John McLinden has been marketing SchoolStreet Homes, a project of 26 homes with a New Urbanism feel and prices starting at $489,000. Deposits have been put down on 16 homes, and the first should be delivered to buyers in April. Features of the homes include positioning them close to the street and building oversize front porches to spark interaction between neighbors.

Given the parallels between McLinden's project and Susanka's message, McLinden said he was "dreaming a little bit," but, as a fan of her work, he thought that a not-so-big home would fit nicely into his project. So he tried to contact her.

After five months, 25 e-mails and 10 phone calls to her business manager, and the sharing of a lot of information about himself, the development and Libertyville, McLinden talked with Susanka by phone. Three weeks later, she came to visit.

She was sold, both on the project and its Libertyville location, so it will be the first time she's put her name on someone else's project.

"We think of community as a place, but first and foremost it's about the connections between people," Susanka said. "For that to happen, you have to have a town structure that supports those interactions. In Libertyville, I found out that they've been working for many years with the Main Street USA (program) to keep their Main Street vital. People know they have something special."

In McLinden, she also found a believer in her vision. "Our approach on the preliminary design lays out furniture absent the room dimensions," he said. "One of the parallels with what Sarah talks about is it's more important about the way a room works than it's 18 by 24. When you think about a favorite room, you don't think about the room dimensions, the ceiling height. That's the nerve that Sarah is able to touch."

Construction on the home, which will be built regardless of whether it's presold, will begin in April, and as it moves toward a fall completion, McLinden and Susanka will get a chance to see whether they click professionally. If all goes according to plan, the two may team on other projects elsewhere in the Chicago. The Libertyville house, in other words, is a guinea pig.

McLinden said motorists won't be able to drive down the street and pick out the home to be designed by Susanka, and, in fact, some of her elements may find their way into the other homes.

"I'm not trying to make high-art architecture, although it could be fun," Susanka said. "I believe there is a great house for Everyman, and that's what I'm trying to build."